With the promotion of the FA’s Play Safe Campaign this weekend it’s a timely chance to announce that Darren Scoulding has kindly taken up the role of Club Welfare Officer for AFC Sudbury.

Darren has a wealth of experience following his time in football and role at Suffolk FA and will combine this with his role as Head of Girls Academy with Beth Morrell. Jules Ankers will remain in touch for policy and administration backup, but all concerns should now be raised directly with Darren or via email address welfare@afcsudbury.co.uk.

This is also a good time to highly recommend to all parents and carers that The FA have introduced a FREE Child Welfare Course which aims to provide information about what to do if you have any concerns about children. It will signpost you to the helplines or actions to take and defines what you can do to help any child you may have concerns about.

The course is called Safeguard Awareness for Parents and Carers and can be found by following this link: https://learn.englandfootball.com/courses/safeguarding/safeguarding-awareness-for-parents-and-carers. You will need your FAN number to register, you will have one of these if you have consented for your child to play football so please don’t set up a new account, use the ‘forgot password’ link if you can’t remember how to log in.

Play Safe launched last November and will last for at least three years. It exists to highlight the importance of safeguarding in football and the important role every type of stakeholder can play to ensure safeguarding is embedded in every football activity. The annual weekend is the main time to promote Play Safe and its messages, but it exists all the time – a bit like Respect. It's a pan-football campaign and has the full support of the professional game – the Premier League, EFL, FA Women’s Super League and FA Women’s Championship. It’s also endorsed by the NSPCC.

For more information FOR MORE INFO ON PLAY SAFE CLICK HERE